Cutting off bad relationships leading to having few friends/feeling disconnected

[LanaD]

I say.....you do you.

Yes, it sucks being alone....but sometimes its better to focus on oursel...

That's the thing, I wasn't looking for a relationship, I was going about my business when the acquaintance started pursuing me. It was months before I agreed to meet up with him, and that was only after assurance that he had broken up with the girlfriend (so I feel stupid for having believed him). I never had a good relationship in my life, and when things like this bad experience happen hope diminishes.

> The alone thing most definitely isn't forever!

Thanks for that, Eve! I'm glad I have you guys here to remind me to pick myself up :) The friends I have keep telling me not to worry, but I always think they're biased haha

 

[Chem Lady]

I totally understand how you feel @LanaD. I feel very much the same. I have broke contact with my parents, siblings, most aunts and uncles and cousins as well as many people I thought were friends. I found I recognized the good attributes of people when they popped up. For example, one Uncle and Aunt said they were worried about me when I told them I needed heart surgery. It was so refreshing to be cared about! Something caring and good! A new friend offered to help me do my shopping after heart surgery... unheard of in my life! I've still come across some people who seemed to have some good traits, but they didn't turn into strong friendships. It's taken years to put together a reasonably sized community and I still sometimes feel very alone. And, yes, I have to work very hard not to be clingy or come across as clingy. It's helped to increase my community over time so I can spread things around so I'm not too clingy to any one person in particular.
I sure wish you good luck as you try out new people and work to find your own community so you feel less alone.
This support group really helps me feel less alone too!

 

[Friday]

Think of it like moving... Without having to go to the trouble of packing up your house. :sneaky:

There's almost always a bit of a pause when moving to a new place, in establishing a new network of people you see going about your life, acquaintances, regulars, & friends.

The same sort of thing tends to happen during major life transitions, as well. Graduating from school, breaking up, getting married, having children, getting divorced, major illness, etc. It's not a geographical move, but our lives are nonetheless moving in a different direction. As our lives change? So do the people that populate them.

 

[LanaD]

I totally understand how you feel @LanaD. I feel very much the same. I have broke...

Thank you!

Think of it like moving... Without having to go to the trouble of packing up your house. :sneaky:

There...

Well, the idea of moving stresses me out, but I'll take the idea that as we move on the people who populate our lives change. I'll think of it as blank spaces on a canvas that will be filled with time! :)

 

[ms spock]

Better to be alone than with people who hurt and or abuse you.

So intellectually I know that but never knowing it emotionally meant I was so vulnerable, and I am so vulnerable. I never had a time when people weren't abusing me or hurting me.

 

[Lionheart]

I never had a time when people weren't abusing me or hurting me.

There was a time when I could say the same. To my mind, one needs to be able to differentiate between healthy behavior and abusive behavior, on both an intellectual and an emotional level, to have a choice between the two. This is just my 2 cents so please take it for what it is...just one persons opinion.

 

[Deleted member 541]

I would rather be totally alone, than to be surrounded by abusive people. I’ve had enough of that in my lifetime, now I Just was peace and to live out my life with no shit and drama.

 

[LanaD]

...on both an intellectual and an emotional level.

Maybe that's the key. Reading what you wrote made me wonder if intellectually we know people are abusing us but emotionally we don't want to admit it because we feel we need the relationship - or maybe it's the other way around and we feel inside we're being abused but we rationalize it.

At any rate, I'll say that yes, it's very hard right now, this feeling of drifting into Alone Land but I no doubt prefer it to being treated badly, because in the latter case I felt even more alone.

 

[ms spock]

I kind of think a person should spend time working on themselves and doing things that interest them, not so much worrying about how they look or what other people are doing. No one likes to hear that, I have found.

I went to a retreat on the weekend where most of the people had that focus. They are out there, you just have to find them.

But it turns out that my "friends" now are three of my direct neighbors, my sister in law, and my elderly aunt. All people I have known for 10-40 years. Not a bad set of people and I'm grateful for them. Interestingly, most of the people I currently talk to disagree with me politically and have different religious and cultural beliefs than I do (which was not the case with my former friends), but that has not turned out to matter.

That is called emotional maturity, and showing respect, learning to live as an adult. You are a fabulour role model to the rest of the world! (Yes I actually wish that was a joke!)

ry looking around at people you wouldn't have talked to much before?

That is a good strategy.

And I would suggest giving dating a break. That's when the good ones pop up.

Find a hobby, disco dancing, wildlife rehabbing, instrument playing, or a bush walking group, etc. That means you have fun, and the focus is not on social interaction, so you can just politely move away if you want to, as well.

 

[Freida]

I was looking at my wedding pictures last week and realized that there are only a couple people in my life now who were in my life then. I had to get away from them because they were a huge cause of stress -- and admitting that broke my heart. I had known some of them for 15 and 20 years and considered them the closest people to me. f

But. Weirdly, I have new people who have just kind of ...appeared. People I may not have given a second thought to back in the day. And they are showing me a different way to have relationships. It's been a slow cautious process.... but I wouldn't trade any of them for those I left behind

 

[ms spock]

There was a time when I could say the same. To my mind, one needs to be able to differentiate between healthy behavior and abusive behavior, on both an intellectual and an emotional level, to have a choice between the two.

You are so right @Lionheart777, you are just way ahead of me on this one. You are all so ahead of this one than I am.

 

[ms spock]

It was months before I agreed to meet up with him, and that was only after assurance that he had broken up with the girlfriend (so I feel stupid for having believed him).

Trusting someone is a leap of faith, and if you didn't learn who was safe as a child, then well we spend a life time playing catch up. And if you don't get a chance to reality check it is really hard to work it out. I have been caught out big time recently myself. Sometimes you only find these things out with time. I learnt a lot through the experience though.